Williamsburg sophomore pitcher Kacey Smith has not given up a run through four games in the postseason for the Lady Wildcats.

Williamsburg sophomore pitcher Kacey Smith has not given up a run through four games in the postseason for the Lady Wildcats.
By Chris Chaney
Sun staff

The Lady Wildcats walk alone.

Two weeks after the first pitches were thrown in the 2015 postseason, only the Williamsburg softball team is left throwing meaningful ones as the calendar nears the end of May.

The Lady Wildcats were the only local team to advance through the district round of the state tournament after five local schools captured sectional titles.

Burg defeated No. 9 seed Milton-Union, 10-0 in six innings, in the Division III district final to earn a regional semifinal berth on Thursday, May 28 at Wright State University.

“We’re extremely proud of the fact that we get to represent our community, our area of the Southwest District,” Williamsburg athletic director and head softball coach Rick Healey said. “Our kids have worked really hard. The team is really focused on our game Thursday, so right now, I couldn’t be more proud of them.”

Healey pointed to Williamsburg’s 42-0 combined margin of victory over their first four rounds as evidence of a balanced team playing its best ball at the right time.

“They have their eye on the target,” he said. “As long as we can keep hitting the ball the way we are and Kacey (Smith) can keep pitching the way she is, good things are going to happen.”

Another key to the sustained success Williamsburg has found in the postseason is the focus that Healey continues to harp upon. With graduation night in the rearview mirror for the Lady Wildcats, Healey said it’s his seniors who walked in caps and gowns on May 23 that are leading the way.

“The senior leadership between Kennedy Clark and Shelby Schaeffer, those two girls are focused and making sure everyone else is ready to go,” Healey said. “There have been times in the past when we’ve had seniors check out after graduation. Kids just start thinking about other things — college, what they’re doing for the summer — but my seniors are making the rest of the team pull the line. That’s a good thing.”

With the team zeroed in on the task at hand, Healey has used some scouting and networking to prepare he and his team for Middletown Madison on Thursday.

“I saw Madison play,” Healey said “They played Blanchester in the tournament and obviously, Blanchester is in our league. At the All-League banquet (on Tuesday, May 26), Jamey Groggy and I went through their scorebook and I’ll compare that to the gamelan that I saw and come up with a strategy that gives us the best chance to get down to the Elite Eight.”

From what Healey has seen, he knows that Madison can score runs, but they also tend to give up some, too.

Given the Lady Wildcats recent run of form, Healey said he thinks that combination plays into his team’s hands.

“I like our chances of Kacey keeping them to no more than two or three runs,” Healey said. “Most of the teams I’ve looked at who have played them have been able to score runs; they’ve just been outscored.

“We have hit the ball well and scored a lot of runs thus far, so my hope is that Kacey can hold them to two or three and we can score seven or eight.”

Should the Lady Wildcats get by Madison on Thursday, they will earn a return trip to Wright State on Saturday, May 30 to face the winner of Hamilton Badin and Richwood North Union for the right to play in the state semifinals.

Sectional champions eliminated: While Williamsburg looks forward at what the rest of the season may hold, their four Clermont County counterparts who were able to win sectional titles can only look back at what could have been.

Glen Este, Milford, Goshen and Felicity-Franklin all fell in district final match ups that were predictably hard-fought.

In Division I, Milford fell 4-0 to Lebanon, the No. 1 team in the state.

Glen Este, facing Springboro on the other side of the regional bracket, were edged 1-0.

In Division IV, the recent postseason success of Felicity came to an abrupt end in a 1-0 loss to fellow No. 1 seed Covington.

Lastly, Goshen, in Division II were outclassed by top-seeded Greenville 13-1.

Complete sectional, district, regional and state tournament brackets are available on ohsaa.org.